Wikistyle basics

WikiStyles allow authors to modify the color and other styling attributes of a page's contents. A wikistyle is written using percent-signs, as in %red% or %bgcolor=blue%.

The most basic use of wikistyles is to change text attributes such as color, background color, and font. PmWiki defines several wikistyles for changing the text color to %black%, %white%, %red%, %yellow%, %blue%, %gray%, %silver%, %maroon%, %green%, %navy%, and %purple%.

Scopes

Wikistyles can also specify a scope; with no scope, the style is applied to any text that follows up to the next wikistyle specification or the end of the paragraph, whichever comes first. Including a scope changes the specification to apply to the whole paragraph (%p ...%), an entire list (%list ...%), an item within a list (%item ...%), or any block (%block ...%). Those scopes are predefined shortcuts for the "apply=" attribute, which is discussed below.

%p bgcolor=#ffeeee% The wikistyle specification at the beginning of this
line applies to the entire paragraph, even if there are %blue% other
wikistyle specifications %% in the middle of the paragraph.

The wikistyle specification at the beginning of this line applies to the entire paragraph, even if there are other wikistyle specifications in the middle of the paragraph.

The >>style<< block can be used to apply a wikistyle to a large block of items. The style is applied until the next >><< is encountered.

The attributes in the first two columns correspond to the cascading style sheet (CSS) properties of the same name. The attributes in the last column apply only to specific items:

class= and id= assign a CSS class or identifier to an HTML element

target=name opens links that follow in a browser window called "name"

rel=name in a link identifies the relationship of a target page

accesskey=x uses 'x' as a shortcut key for the link that follows

value=9 sets the number of the current ordered list item

* The width and height attributes have asterisks because they are handled specially for <img .../> tags. If used by themselves (i.e., without anything providing an "apply=" parameter to the wikistyle), then they set the 'width=' and 'height=' attributes of any <img ... /> tags that follow. Otherwise, they set the 'width:' and 'height:' properties of the element being styled.

Applying wikistyles to blocks

Normally a wikistyle applies to a span of (inline) text, but
the apply= attribute allows a style to be applied to something
else. The predefined apply= values are:

apply=img

apply the style to any image that follows

apply=p

apply the style to the current paragraph

*

apply=pre

apply the style to the current preformatted text

apply=list

apply the style to the current list

*

apply=item

apply the style to the current list item

*

apply=div

apply the style to the current div

apply=block

apply the style to the current block,whether it's a paragraph, list, list item,heading, or division.

*

The starred items also have wikistyle shortcuts already defined,
thus %p color=blue% is the same as %apply=p color=blue%, and
%list ROMAN% is the same as %apply=list list-style=upper-roman%.

Some wikistyle shortcuts also make use of apply, thus %right%
is a shortcut for %text-align=right apply=block%.

An applied wikistyle will only take effect if it's on the
line that starts the thing it's supposed to modify. In other
words, a wikistyle in the third markup line of a paragraph
can't change the attributes of the paragraph:

here is some text in
a paragraph and if
we try to %apply=p color=blue% change
the color of the paragraph in the middle
it won't work because the style comes
after the paragraph has already been started.

here is some text in
a paragraph and if
we try to change
the color of the paragraph in the middle
it won't work because the style comes
after the paragraph has already been started.

However, this %p color=red% paragraph
''will'' be in red because its block style does
occur in the first line of its text.

However, this paragraph
will be in red because its block style does
occur in the first line of its text.

* Here's a list item
* %list red% Oops, too late to affect the list!

Here's a list item

Oops, too late to affect the list!

Enabling Styles

Styles not listed above can be enabled by a PMWiki Adminstrator by modifying the local/config.php file. For instance to enable the "line-height" style attribute add the line

$WikiStyleCSS[] = 'line-height';

to the local/config.php file.

Custom style shortcuts

The define= attribute can be used to assign a shorthand name to any wikistyle specification. This shorthand name can then be reused in later wikistyle specifications.

Tip: Use custom style definitions to associate meanings with text instead of just colors. For example, if warnings are to be displayed as green text, set %define=warn green% and then use %warn% instead of %green% in the document. Then, if you later decide that warnings should be styled differently, it's much easier to change the (one) definition than many occurrences of %green% in the text.